Daily thoughts in the extraordinary life of an average single mom

Tag Archives: promises

Today I thought about you all day, even though I don’t know your name or your face. I don’t know what makes you passionate. I have never heard the timber of your laughter after I say something that you think is funny. I have never memorized your hands or your back. I have never shared secrets with your heart, while your soul nods because it already knew we were destined. That it already knew we were the same. I thought of you, though I don’t know you. Though we have never met.

Today, I silently imagined your fingers filling the spaces in mine, staring at my hand. The spaces that cause tears to spill out like holes in my red-sailed boat. Today, I ran those fingers through your hair, closing my eyes as you held me. Today, I half-laughed ’til I cried as I thought of you playing with The Kid in the grass of a smokey mid-morning outside my house. I dreamed of you holding his hands and the smiles that you two would share. Today, I sat in the green armchair just to feel as though you were here holding me, the arms of the couch will have to suffice. Today, I prayed for you. I prayed that you would grow and hurry up in finding me. That I would have the patience to wait, and that you would make me fall in love with you. Tonight you will be with me in my mind’s eye. We will talk a movie into submission, making jokes at its expense. We will sit, smiling and charming each other with jokes and stories. Today, I thought of saying something and having you there, barely containing your desire to discover every little intricacy about me. Excited to know all of me. Today, you rekindled my hope and gave me yourself freely. Today, we bantered in my mind, bouncing wit off each other and making me beam. Today, I moped and I knew you wouldn’t approve, but I feel empty without you.

So, please take the next train to my small town. Say that you need a vacation. Say you needed a break for a couple of days. Say you just had to stop in on your way to some far off destination, traveling down our lonely highway. Then walk in..to the store, or the bookstore, or a restaurant. Find me, so that I can fall in love with your eyes and you can listen to me. So that you can help with all the talks I’ll have to have with The Kid. I don’t know how to explain life to him, I don’t know how to tell him why. Why his dad doesn’t live with him or isn’t around, in a way that he’ll understand. I don’t know how to tell him why I’m sad sometimes or why I’m not married, like other kid’s parents or other adults. Or answer the questions he’ll have that hide an empty spot inside him. I need you to teach him how to pee standing up, and have “the talk” with him.

We can talk all night, about nothing or everything, and you can chase away years of my tears until they come back as laughter. You can tell me you love me and I will cry and know that the prayers I was scared to pray where I could hear myself, were answered. That my mother was right. That He knew, and now smiles at me as if I’m a child who thought Saturday would never come. “Silly girl” He’ll say, “he was always coming for you. I made you. Who couldn’t love you?” And I’ll grin and know He’s right.

I promise not to let you go. I promise to look at no one else the way I look at you. I promise to listen. I promise to be there when you wake up. I promise to grow and create a newer me everyday, one you’d be proud to know. I promise to make you laugh, with my bad dancing, ability to care plants to death, my love of silly songs and obsession with autumn and stripes. I promise to always cuddle with you and kiss you. I promise to never get tired or annoyed of your rantings or your love of me. I promise to believe when you say you love me. I promise to love your favorite shirt, even if it’s not my favorite. I promise to trust you and respect you. I promise…